After watching English miss a ton of shots in a summer league game, and after we just signed another shooter, Luigi "Gigi" Datome at small forward, time for another rotation.

Knight, Middleton, Smith, Monroe, Drummond start. Why Middleton - he looks pretty smooth handling the ball, more of a chance of the ball getting to our front court for dunks with him in.

2nd unit: Stuckey, Pope, Gigi, Smith moved to power forward, Monroe to center. Later Mitchel comes in for Smith, and Drummond spells Monroe.

Crunch time comes. On offense - go with Knight, Pope, Middleton, Smith, Monroe. Defense? Go big with Knight at point, Tony Michell at shooting guard (the 6-6 one that played for Boston today), Tony Mitchel at small forward (the 6-9 one that led our summer league team in rebounding against Boston), Smith at power forward, Drummond at center.

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I think Drummond can only play about 6 or 7 minutes right now before he is out of gas.

I think Drummond can only play about 6 or 7 minutes right now before he is out of gas.

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Thats still 25 mins or so a game... which would be a godsend compared to last year and hopefully it inches up as the year goes on... I would love him to be doing 30 mins a game this year. I want him to go at 100 miles an hour and not try to conserve his energy, I think that would be a mistake for him.

Ok, so now we have Billups, Bynum, Knight, Stuckey, and Siva at point.

At shooting guard, Pope, English.

At small forward, Singler, Middleton, Josh Smith, Datome, JJ

At power forward Monroe, Mitchell, CV

At center Drummond and Kravtsov

Only problem is, that is 17 players. We can only have 15 on the roster.

In my opinion, you cut the guys who are a liability on defense = Bynum, Singler, JJ, and CV, or find a trade to get rid of some of them.

Knight, despite his flaws, like not running a fast break well, not doing well on a catch and shoot with defensive pressure on him, is still our best all around point. You can't sag off him if he has the ball, and he plays pretty good D. Billups I believe could play the point if paired up with someone who could guard the point. Is Pope that guy? English? Stuckey at shooting guard just is horrid since he can't shoot. I guess you could just straight up use Knight as the point with Billups the starting shooting guard.

OK, so lets go with this last:

Start Knight, Billups, Josh Smith, Monroe, Drummond

2nd unit: Stuckey, Pope, Datome, Mitchell (with Josh Smith also in the mix here), (Drummond and Monroe take turns playing with the 2nd unit.)

Here is another:

Start Billups, Middleton, Datome, Josh Smith, Drummond

Here, you just don't care if their backcourt manages to get past our guards as Drummond and Smith can give a warm welcome at the hoop to those who do.

What was Cheeks’ message? “He’s pretty much telling me I’m one of the vets on this team,” said Stuckey, 27. “It’s my time to lead, it’s my time to get the guys involved and bring them along as well."

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...True. He IS one of the vets on this team when you compare him to guys like Drummond, Pope, Knight, etc. I assume that the comment about "leading" and "bringing guys along" refers to the posibility that someone like Jerebko or Charlie could be packaged along with Rod in a trade to another team.

“We were just talking about what I do best and just make sure I come to work each and every day. Just come out and be ready to be consistent this year.”

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It's a good goal to get yourself "ready to come out and be consistent". What better way to be consistent than to just sit behind the bench in street clothes and put up all-ZEROS in the box score every game. It doesn't get more conststent than that.

Still, the rotation is not set. Losing English, a bad decision in my opinion, gets us to 16 guys. We still have non - defenders CV, Bynum, Singler, and JJ on the squad.

Note to new coach. Last coach, his name shall be clueless, tried to go back all year to a guard tandem that can't work, Knight at point, Stuckey at shooting guard. Stuckey is a horrid shooting guard. You switch it up, and it gets worse. Knight is only comfortable shooting with the ball in his hands already when someone leaves him. Stuckey can't shoot long range with that bad form of his. Stuckey and Knight are both fine point guards, playing each 24 minutes each should be all the minutes either gets. Use actual shooting guards, like KCP at shooting guard. Billups if he is healthy can certainly knock them down from past the arc. Middleton should be a good option.

Bynum. Despite effort, way too often the following happens : Opposing guard just shoots over him with Bynum being able to do not a thing but spectate. Rebound play: Bynum just spectates. A switch of any sort? Bynum can only spectate. Don't be fooled by points scored. He gives them all right back on the defensive end, and your offense by the way will go sour after Bynum calls his own number way too many times.

A rotation:

Start: Knight, KCP, Josh Smith, Monroe, Drummond

2nd unit: Stuckey, Middleton, Gigi, Mitchell, (Monroe and Drummond each staying over some with the 2nd unit.)

This leaves out Bynum, Siva, Billups, Singler, JJ, CV, Kravtsov

Sure, I like Billups. If he is healthy. Hopefully, both he and Siva can get some playing time to see what they can do. So we actually know what we need to do at the trade deadline to improve the team. I hope, for a change, that this coach is on the same page with Dumars on that account. PS - don't let any more young players rot on the bench and never find out what they might give you if played. Letting English go, a promising young guard, to make room for what? A possibly washed up older guard and a point guard who plays no D.

Ok, small ball. We could put quite a set of shooters out there, if Monroe can improve his outside jumper.

Billups, Pope, Middleton, Gigi, Monroe. Obviously, Gigi is a bit light to play power forward, but at 220, hey, its been done. Yes, Monroe would have the floor spread to allow him to work inside. Heck, go even smaller, put Smith at center. Sounds a bit far fetched, sure, but we just could see such.

How big could we go? Well, Stuckey has some size to him for a point guard. Middleton at shooting guard, Mitchell at small forward (or Smith), Monroe, Drummond. And actually, if we used something like the above rotation, we should see this exceptioonally big unit as a matter of routine. Bigger still? Move Gigi Datome to shooting guard who is a few inches taller than Middleton. Bigger still? Use Smith as your shooting guard. He can dish assists. It is plausible. Thats Stuckey, Smith, Mitchell, Monroe, Drummond.

Looking just at the guard situation, rotations are going to be interesting early in the season. At a glance there are 5 guys who should get minutes most games. Knight will surely start at PG and get 30 mins. Who starts at SG? Sticky or Pope? Or maybe even CB if they want him to continue in that role for us. Who plays first PG off the bench, Bynum or Billups?

I think Pope comes off the bench to start the season, which likely means a Knight/Stick starting combo. I think Bynum is better suited to running the 2nd unit rather than Billups. The 2nd unit is going to be about athleticism and speed which is obviously not a fit for CB's style. CB really doesn't fit anywhere right now unless he takes some minutes with the starters, meaning either Knight or Sticky get less. I'm cool with that being Rod. I have all Sticky's minutes at SG because there is no reason for him to play PG. We have better options. We'll just have to see how he jells with the new starters and hope he has worked on his 3-ball over the off-season.

PS - I'm trying to make this realistic. Stucco won't be getting DNP-CD's even if some of us would like that.

I don't ever want to see Bynum paired with Knight or Sticky. Pope should always be paired with Bynum to help cover defense and build some cohesiveness. It will be even more difficult for Pope if he has to play with many different PG's so let most of his minutes be with one. That said, Billups might be a solid pair with Pope as he can play the Rip role with his catch and shoot abilities. If he can work on that curl look out. Will be an interesting dynamic to see.

I think the rotations will be VERY easy to figure out as the season starts. I imagine that BK7, KCP and Stick will be given preference on the depth chart. Bynum and Billups are essentially $5M worth of insurance. Bynum knows his role on this team, collect DNP's until those ahead of you screw up and then WHAM! Unleash WILLIE BYNUMITE!!!! That's why I like Will, he's never given minutes to start the season, never gets a defined role, coaches always look at him as a player of last resort; yet he NEVER complains about not playing and he's ALWAYS ready when his number is called and he delivers. Billups will be the same way this year. Also if anybody gets traded I imagine these guys will need to move into the rotation.